This invention relates to computer-assisted electronic commerce (e-commerce), and more particularly to customer rewards programs.
Consumer rewards programs have been widely used for many years. Supermarkets once issued value stamps or coupons that a consumer could accumulate and exchange for a reward or discount. Airline Frequent-Flyer programs reward travelers with free tickets once enough miles have been flown. Credit-card-like rewards cards are presented by shoppers at supermarket checkouts to receive instant price reductions.
Computers have been used to manage such rewards programs. See xe2x80x9cAutomated Purchase Reward Accounting System and Methodxe2x80x9d, U.S. Pat. No. 5,056,019 by Schultz et al., and assigned to Citicorp of Stamford, Conn. Computer networks have also been used for reward-program administration. Frequent-Flyer miles in a person""s account can be accessed over the Internet using the world-wide-web.
Increasing the Internet is being used for purchases. Online xe2x80x9cvirtualxe2x80x9d stores are replacing the so-called xe2x80x9cbricks-and-mortarxe2x80x9d stores. A single virtual store can serve customers in many different cities and states without costly local stores. As demand increases, additional computers are merely added to the store, allowing phenomenal sales growth with relatively little capital outlay. As an example, Priceline.com, an online seller of airline tickets, reached one million customers in their first year of operation. To reach one million customers, traditional stores such as Wal-Mart have to build and open hundreds or more stores in many different cities, at a substantial cost and delay.
e-Commercexe2x80x94FIG. 1
FIG. 1 is a diagram of electronic commerce (e-commerce) using the Internet. A shopper uses browser 10 on a local client personel computer (PC) to access web sites on Internet 20. The user can connect directly to online stores 12, 14, and can search for products within each store using the store""s local search engine. For example, a user looking for a special book tittle can connect to amazon.com (of Seattle Wash.)as store 12, and to BarnesAndNoble.com as store 14, and perform two search for the book""s tittle. Each store 12, 14 presents its price and book description to the user of browser 10. The user can then buy the book from the store with the lower price by pressing virtual buttons displayed on the web page. The user is then shown a checkout page, where the user enters his shipping address, credit card, and other information to complete the purchase.
The user may instead connect directly to online mall 16. Online mall 16 has private connection to store 12, 14 and other stores, perhaps receiving a database and updates of current product and price information from each store 12, 14. When the user performs a product search on line mall 16, prices from many different stores are presented together on the same web page, allowing a quick comparison. For example, a book in a local walk-in books that costs $15 may be available for $12 at store 12 (amazon.com.) However, a search for the book at online mall 16 shows another store 14 with the same book for only $10. Perhaps the user was not aware of the existence of store 14 since it is relatively unknown. The user thus saves an additional $2 by using online mall 16 to find an online store with lower prices.
While online malls are useful, often they have exclusive marketing agreements with some online stores that exclude other stores. For example, some online malls at web portals such as Yahoo! and Excite of Santa Clara, Calif. show books only from amazon.com and not from other online booksellers. A user of such an online mall is not told of the lower prices at competitors to amazon.com.
To perform a more thorough search, the user can also use a software program or agent known as an Internet robot or xe2x80x98botxe2x80x99. The user of browser 10 connects to xe2x80x98botxe2x80x99 service 24 and enters the product information to search for. xe2x80x98Botxe2x80x99 service 24 then sends out a search to stores 12, 14 for the product, and also searches other sites on the Internet. xe2x80x98Botxe2x80x99 service 24 then reports its results back to browser 10.
Online auctions may also have the desired product for sale. xe2x80x98Botxe2x80x99 service 24 may also perform a search at online auction site 18. Online auctions may provide much lower prices than online stores 12, 14. For example, a book that retails for $20 and is discounted to $16 at online store 12 may be found for $2 at online auction site 18 when few are bidding on the book. See U.S. Pat. No. 5,835,896 by Fisher et al., and assigned to Onsale, Inc. of Menlo Park, Calif. Some online auction sites 18 allow purchasers to leave feedback on sellers. Such feedback is accumulated and scored to provide other bidders with information about the seller""s integrity.
Change-detection web site 29 can be used to periodically and automatically search online auction site 18 for a particular item and price. Thus items that are infrequently on auction can be found if the user is patient. See U.S. Pat. No. 5,898,836 by Freivald et al., assigned to NetMind Services, Inc. of Campbell, Calif.
Online Reviews
Internet shopping is powerful not only because of the lower prices found. Many product reviews are posted on the Internet. The user can read such product reviews at magazine review site 22. Some online malls 16 link shoppers to these product-specific reviews, allowing shoppers to compare products as well as prices.
Ordinary persons who are not members of the press can also post reviews and comments about products on the Internet. Newsgroups have traditionally been used by consumers to post comments about various products. Newsgroup search site 28 can be used to find such comments.
Unfortunately, finding product comments in newsgroups can be difficult, especially when the product lacks a unique marketing name that can be searched for. Some web sites are being created to collect product reviews and opinions from users. User opinion site 26 encourages users to leave product reviews by promising rewards for the reviewers based on the usefulness of the advice. Other readers vote on the quality of the product reviews, and the results used to rank the reviews.
While such product reviews and consumer comments and opinions add to the usefulness of the overall Internet, they may not be directly linked to the product pages of online stores 12, 14, forcing users to independently navigate to stores 12, 14. Since price information is not always linked to product reviews, users must still search for the lowest prices using xe2x80x98botxe2x80x99 service 24 or online mall 16.
Although the cost of setting up an online store or service is much lower than for traditional stores and services, the cost is still significant. The time required to accumulate product reviews or build a database of products and prices for an online mall is significant. While software can be used to search for and collect information from the Internet, often the software is confused by the information retrieved, perhaps reading a phone number or product ID as a price. Human intervention and checking of this information is often required, at an added expense. As prices change, the database must be updated or corrected.
What is desired is a web site and service with a searchable database of products and price information. It is desired to collect product and price information from a wide variety of online stores and malls. It is desired to rapidly build the database at a minimum of cost. It is desired to use consumers to build and maintain the information in the database by allowing consumers to submit and/or correct product and price information. It is further desired to reward consumers for building and correcting information in the product and price database. Such rewards are preferably based on the relevance of the information supplied or corrected by the consumer, and by how often the information is used by other consumers.
A searchable database contains information submitted by rewarded users. A plurality of records each contain information presented to a searcher when search terms input by the searcher match terms in the record. A data-entry module receives information from a rewarded user. The information is written to a target record in the plurality of records.
A rewards database contains account records for users including a reward count for each user. A reward module is coupled to the rewards database. It is activated when the searcher views information in the target record. The reward module increases a reward count for the rewarded user when the searcher views the information in the target record submitted by the rewarded user. Thus the reward count for the rewarded user increases in proportion to a number of times that a searcher or another searcher views the information submitted by the rewarded user. Rewards for submitting information depend on a number of times the information is viewed by others.
In further aspects of the invention a network connection is coupled to the data-entry module. It receives information from the rewarded user on a remote node of a network and sends information to the searcher on a different remote node of the network. Thus the searchable database is accessed through the network. The network is an Internet, and the searcher accesses the searchable database though a web page search form and the rewarded user accesses the data-entry module through a web page entry form.
In further aspects a verifier is coupled to the data-entry module. It verifies information submitted by the rewarded user. The verifier re-fetches a web page containing the information submitted by the rewarded user from a network. The verifier locates the information submitted on the web page and enters the information into the target record when information on the web page matches the information submitted by the rewarded user. Thus information submitted is verified by re-fetching the web page before information is added to the searchable database.
In still further aspects the data-entry module receives the information from the rewarded user using an online form, an email message, or a file transfer. The information submitted by the rewarded user includes at least a portion of a uniform-resource-locator (URL) and a price, a product name, a manufacturer, a supplier, and/or a model name.
In further aspects of the invention a correction module is coupled to the plurality of records. It allows the searcher to correct information viewed from the target record. The correction module updates the target record to a corrected record. The reward module increases a reward count for the searcher when the searcher submits a correction. When another searcher views the information in the corrected record, the reward count for the searcher that submitted the correction increases. Thus the searcher receives future rewards when others view the corrected record.